


No Plan

by alpacasandravens



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Self-Harm, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, i'm incapable of giving jonathan a happy life sorry, it is a happy ending though!!, obviously an au but also set in the legion of horribles arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 02:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20250940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alpacasandravens/pseuds/alpacasandravens
Summary: Jonathan doesn't want a soulmate. He's never known love to mean anything but pain, and he isn't happy that the universe decided to give him a soulmate. He's even less happy that it's Jervis, a man who hangs his hopes for the world on the eventual arrival of his soulmate.Angsty soulmate au with a happy ending and some fantastic Jerome friendship moments.





	No Plan

**Author's Note:**

> This is dedicated to Damien who spoke the words 'soulmate au' to me 11 hours ago. since then i have not rested. i have only written.  
it's in the tags but again, warning for self-harm. One instance is explicit, one is referenced. If I need to add any more warnings, as always (politely) let me know.

Soulmates, Jonathan had long ago decided, were bullshit.

Most children are born with half a tattoo on their wrists. The image is different for everyone, and even when other, natural tattoos are placed next to it, the soulmark looks different. Alive, somehow. When the child meets their soulmate, the person with the other half of the tattoo, the soulmark is completed - both halves of the tattoo will appear on each partner’s arm, the complete picture shown for the first time.

Of course, some children have more than one soulmate. Some unfortunate children don’t have one at all. Their wrists are blank, and they are shamed for it. A soulmate doesn’t have to be romantic, though it generally is. And, as Jonathan found out as a child, hiding in his bedroom and listening to his parents’ yells through the walls of their home, being soulmates does not guarantee a healthy relationship.

Jonathan was born with two circles on his wrist, slightly smaller than dimes and filled with a kaleidoscopic pattern that almost seemed to move out of the corner of his eye. The circles weren’t set in any way that made sense, and he couldn’t think what the other half of this soulmark could possibly be.

Until he was around seven years old, he cared. He used to wonder what his soulmate would be like. What their tattoo would be, and what theirs would look like when completed. He knew his parents weren’t happy, and he stubbornly held onto hope that when he grew up, he would be better. After all, he had a soulmate, and that meant he would have to be happy, right? All he had to do was make sure he found his soulmate.

When he was seven, he noticed the tattoo on his mother’s wrist for the first time. He’d seen it before, of course. Even the suburbs of Gotham got hot in the summer, and she’d never been one to hide her mark. But that summer, he truly noticed it. On her wrist, his mother bore a tattoo of an open book under a reading lamp. The tattoo was completed. 

After that, he was no longer so optimistic about his soulmate. 

Apparently, his parents were soulmates. And they made each other miserable. Sure, they seemed happy, most of the time. They went out together and brought food to the neighborhood potluck every couple of months and his father bought his mother a shiny necklace for her birthday that she never took off. But the peace never lasted, and barely a week would go by without a fight. Through it all, Jonathan sat in the corner of his room, or under a blanket on his bed, and listened to the shouts and the sound of shattering dishes with a blank numbness. If this was how soulmates lived, he wanted no part of it.

In elementary school, soulmarks were private, to the extent that anything can be private at that age. Kids all saw each other’s marks, but the significance was largely lost. They didn’t care about what they meant as a soulmark; they cared about the designs the living ink formed on their skin. If someone had a flower on their wrist, they didn’t theorize about what its other half could be, they admired the pretty design and moved on.

In middle school, that all changed. It had been fairly easy, before, for Jonathan to decide that he wasn’t going to have a soulmate, universe be damned. But now, soulmates were a constant topic of discussion. Everyone was interested in them all the time. That didn’t stop middle schoolers from being middle schoolers, gossiping about crushes and having awkward first kisses under the bleachers while avoiding gym class. But the idea of true love had filtered into everyone’s minds, and most people could hardly wait.

“It’s not worth it,” Jonathan wanted to say. “Soulmates aren’t going to make you happy.” 

He didn’t say anything.

Jonathan had very few friends - he wasn’t athletic enough, or funny enough, or cute enough, or even geeky enough to make his way into any of the cliques. But even the friends he did have were infected by the notion of soulmates. They would constantly check their tattoos every time they met someone new, and would always fail to hide their disappointment when it hadn’t changed.

Not long after the start of the school year, Jonathan began wearing long sleeves. It was still too hot to be doing so, but he didn’t want anyone looking at his soulmark. Really, he would prefer it if he didn’t have one - that way, when he was inevitably unhappy, at least it would be his own choices that had brought him there, and not some twisted plan of the universe meant to make him miserable.

After a fight bad enough to make his mother walk out of the house for a week, Jonathan decided to take matters into his own hands. He wasn’t going to have this happen to him when he grew up. He didn’t want a soulmate, and he wasn’t going to have one.

He stole his father’s lighter, took it to the bathroom, and tried to burn off the soulmark. He held the flame up to his skin and even as his hands shook and he cried silently from the pain he refused to let himself move it. The skin bubbled and peeled, turning red and black and falling off, and he dropped the lighter. Delirious from the pain, he crawled into the corner of the bathroom and held out his mangled wrist. He couldn’t stop the tears, but he was happy. He’d done it. He’d seen the universe’s plan for him, and he’d avoided it.

When he finally took off the bandages days later, the skin on his wrist was twisted, mottled red and white from the scars. Atop the destroyed skin, two circles stubbornly remained, kaleidoscopic patterns twisting in defiance of Jonathan’s plans. He curled up on his bed and cried.

He only wore long sleeves now, to hide both the scarring and the tattoo. Soon, everyone forgot he even had a soulmark. Everyone except Jonathan. They mocked him for it, said “See? Nobody wants you,” and “Even the universe knows he’s a loser.” They said he was destined to be miserable, and privately, Jonathan agreed. He wished he didn’t have a soulmark, because love sounded like something terrible. In his experience, love was his parents never being able to leave each other even as they wished they could. It was a curse, and Jonathan would give anything to be one of the children born without a soulmark. At least their life was their own.

Nearly a year after his failed attempt at rebellion, Jonathan’s house burned down. He ran out as the beams collapsed and the fire raged around him, and for a brief moment, he considered staying. Letting himself burn up. He shook his head to rid himself of the thought and kept running.

He’d barely made it to the lawn when, with a huge shuddering crack, the top floor of the house caved in. Sparks billowed into the air and the sirens of the fire trucks were still too far away. Jonathan looked around the yard, and in the early morning fog, he only saw his father. The paramedics would give him a shock blanket he would gratefully huddle under before they told him. They’d gotten his mother out of the house, but it had been too late. 

Her death destroyed Jonathan’s father. It ripped a hole out of Jonathan too, took the only person who truly, unconditionally cared for him and killed her. He watched his father wander aimlessly, focusing on work, on anything to try and forget he’d lost his soulmate. His tattoo faded to dead black, and he, like Jonathan, began habitually wearing long sleeves. 

Soon enough, he switched his focus from work to Jonathan, determined to fix him by removing his fear. But the issue was, he didn’t know why Jonathan was afraid. Because yes, Jonathan didn’t like loud noises. He didn’t like thunder and he didn’t like large crowds of people and he didn’t like being asked about his future. But those weren’t irrational fears, something his father could cure with his fear vaccine.

He was scared of those things because they reminded him of his parents fighting, of being just a kid and terrified and absolutely hopeless. He hated his past, and he was scared of his future, of falling into the exact same trap his parents had. He stayed away from people because the universe loved playing cruel tricks. If anyone he met could be his soulmate, his solution was to never meet anyone. He didn’t want to have a future, because he was terrified of it not being his own. 

His father, of course, didn’t see it that way. He didn’t see a traumatized kid, he saw his son as riddled with inexplicable fears, and he thought he could fix it. So he made Jonathan help him as he killed and experimented on dozens of people, harvesting their terror to inoculate Jonathan. 

And he said he did it because he loved Jonathan, and Jonathan believed him. Because that was his father, and his parents were supposed to love him. But as he’d known his whole life, love didn’t mean anything but pain and sadness.

Nothing that happened in the next several years would dispel that notion. His father died giving him the fear vaccine and all it did was warp the world around him, take his fears and traumas and shove them in his face forever. All of his past became wrapped up in the image of the scarecrow from his backyard, and it haunted him. 

Everywhere he looked, the scarecrow loomed. First the cops, then the doctors in Arkham, wore his father’s face, which blurred in and out of reality, switching with the scarecrow’s before smiling and saying in his father’s voice “I’m only trying to help you, Jonathan.”

The circles on his wrist, when he looked at them, appeared almost like eyes now, like the scarecrow was trying to push its way out of his skin. They rolled in a mad frenzy across his wrist, and he pulled his sleeve back down, desperate to forget them. 

His father’s love had done this to him. He was gone, he couldn’t make it worse, but there was still someone out there the universe had bound to love Jonathan, and he desperately wanted to forget. His mother had died, his father had given him the terrors that danced across his eyes even when he slept. What would his soulmate do?

If he was trapped in Arkham, he couldn’t meet his soulmate, so it didn’t matter. He saw no one but the nurses that treated him, and there was no danger of them being his soulmate. Most of them were his mother’s age, and they saw so many patients they didn’t bother remembering their names. 

It was almost refreshing, to be forgotten. If only the scarecrow would leave him alone so he could enjoy it.

Jonathan is certain he will never meet his soulmate when he is reassigned to the violent and criminally insane wing of Arkham. If he were anyone else, he knew the thought would make him sad. But he wasn’t everyone else, and so he delighted to think he’d finally tricked the universe. He might not have been able to burn away his soulmark, but he’d made sure it would never find its other half, and that was almost as good.

Still, that didn’t mean he wasn’t suspicious when Jerome started sitting with him. Everyone knew Jerome Valeska was the king of Arkham, that he had more power than any of the guards and could walk out of there any time he chose. Some of the less individualistic criminals fawned at his feet, hoping to be favored by Arkham’s resident superstar. He kicked them away with a smile on his face, content to have devoted followers but disappointed at their dullness.

So when Jerome started sitting with Jonathan, he was unnerved. 

“Can I see your wrist?” He asked, hating that he had to ask and determined to kill the ginger menace if he did turn out to be his soulmate.

Jerome raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Like what ya see, hm?”

Jonathan scowled and pressed a makeshift knife he was surprised the guards hadn’t taken from him against Jerome’s throat.

“Easy now,” Jerome laughed, completely unimpressed. He turned over both wrists for Jonathan’s inspection. Both were blank.

Slowly, Jonathan removed his knife and tucked it back into his pocket. “Thank you.”

“Now I wouldn’t know, but if that’s the way ya ask everyone if they’re your soulmate, I think you’re gonna have some issues,” Jerome said. 

Jonathan crossed his arms. “I don’t want a soulmate.”

“That makes two of us.”

“You don’t have one,” Jonathan said, throwing the closest object he could find, which happened to be a crumpled paper napkin, at Jerome’s face. “That’s different.”

Jerome shrugged. “Doesn’t have to be.”

Jerome quickly became Jonathan’s friend. Jonathan had never had a friend before, not really - the friends he’d made in middle school hardly counted, as (in Jonathan’s case) they’d been shallow, all only friends because they couldn’t be friends with anyone better. Jerome had the pick of everyone in Arkham, and he chose to be friends with Jonathan. And after that first day, neither of them brought up soulmates again.

Unfortunately for Jonathan, Jerome had another friend in Arkham, and one he didn’t like nearly as much as he liked Jerome. 

On a practical level, Jonathan knew that people were right to be scared of Jervis Tetch. That he was crazy and determined to make the twisted, happy-but-terrifying version of the world he saw a reality. He knew that Jervis was one of the most feared inmates, that he got extremely limited time in the rec room because the guards knew how easily he could control anyone’s mind. 

And that was all true. But that didn’t mean Jonathan was scared of him. There was a simple reason for this, and it was that Jervis Tetch was ridiculous.

Even when he wasn’t hypnotizing people, he had a strange tendency to speak in rhymes, even when they didn’t make much sense. Jerome knew, and thus Jonathan knew, that Jervis spent most of the time he was locked alone in his cell reading romance novels. Once, Jerome told him, he’d hypnotized a guard and didn’t even use it to escape - he made the guard kick everyone else out of the rec room, switch the channel away from the Gotham News Network, and was several hours into a Hallmark Channel Christmas movie marathon when Arkham finally realized something was wrong.

Jervis was obsessed with the idea of love, that finding his soulmate would somehow be the answer to all his problems. He was so desperate for love that it was off-putting, and almost sad.

The first time he’d met Jervis, Jonathan had told him he didn’t have a soulmark. Jerome had nodded in confirmation, and that had been that. Jervis hadn’t asked to see his wrists. Jonathan wasn’t sure whether this was because Jervis was, at heart, a trusting person, or because Jonathan wouldn’t even take off his scarecrow mask, so asking to see his wrists was a little ridiculous.

Despite literally everything about him, Jonathan didn’t mind Jervis as much as he thought he would. Underneath all the insanity, Jervis was actually quite smart, and along with Jerome, Jonathan thought they would make a good team. Jerome certainly had something planned for the three of them.

For the first time in his life, Jonathan looked forward to the future. For approximately six hours.

When he was alone in his cell that night, Jonathan accidentally caught a glimpse of his wrist. Usually he wouldn’t think anything of it - after all, he’d spent well over a decade pretending he didn’t have a mark there at all. But this time, the mark was larger. The two circles were still there, but something else had joined them. Now, the circles looked like eyes - mad, delusional eyes, spinning above a grin that stretched impossibly wide. A grin he recognized.

He had the Cheshire Cat’s mouth and eyes on his wrist. His tattoo was complete, and there was only one way it could have happened. He’d met his soulmate today.

There was only one person it could be. One Alice in Wonderland-themed villain he’d met today. Jonathan flopped back onto his bed, immediately regretting it when the mattress springs stabbed him in the back. 

Why today? Why ever, really? And most importantly, _why him?_

The next afternoon, when Jervis ran into the rec room like a kid on Christmas, excitedly showing his now-complete tattoo to Jerome and Jonathan, Jonathan felt his heart sink. He didn’t want a soulmate. He really didn’t want this trainwreck of an individual to be his soulmate.

Jervis launched into a long monologue theorizing who his soulmate could be and where he could have met them, and Jonathan was glad Jervis was just a little bit of an idiot. He wasn’t going to tell Jervis that they were soulmates - that would mean acknowledging it, and it would also mean that he would have the most hopelessly sappy, desperately romantic soulmate possibly ever, which he really couldn’t handle. And he told himself it didn’t bother him that Jervis looked like a kicked puppy when Jervis looked at him hopefully and said “You’re the only person I met yesterday,” and Jonathan lied and said “I don’t have a soulmark.”

“Why did you lie?” Jerome asked once Jervis had left.

“I told you. I don’t want a soulmate.”

“So? It’s not like he’s _your_ \- unless he is?”

Jonathan pulled up his sleeve. Jerome stared at the tattoo, identical to the one Jervis had proudly shown them only minutes earlier. “If you tell him, I’ll kill you.”

“He’s gonna find out, ya know. Why won’t you tell him?”

Jonathan pulled his sleeve back down, covering his wrist and hand. He knew it wouldn’t do anything, but he had the sudden urge to try and cut the mark off. “Love… has never been a positive thing.”

Jerome nodded. “I get that. Hell, why do ya think I killed my mom? So if ya don’t wanna tell him, I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

“But. You saw how happy he was. Love is his favorite thing in the world. And he’s my best friend, so…”

“Are you trying to give me an ‘if you hurt him I’ll kill you’ talk?” Jonathan snorted in disbelief.

“Nah! I wouldn’t kill ya.” Jerome waved his hand like the thought was ridiculous when they both knew he’d killed dozens of people. “Just don’t hurt him, ‘kay?”

Jonathan spent the next several weeks in an increasing state of anxiety. He had absolutely no idea how he was supposed to deal with this. After the first couple days, Jervis’s excitement had worn off and he had gone back to reading his romance novels, only this time with a distinctly bitter tone. “Why should they get to be happy,” he muttered as he read. 

Before, he’d rolled the sleeves on his Arkham uniform up to show off his completed tattoo. Now, he rolled them back down angrily. Both he and Jonathan were trying to pretend their tattoos hadn’t been completed, but for vastly different reasons. Jervis wanted hope back - the idea that he could cling to that somewhere, there was someone out there who would love him, even if no one else had. Jonathan wanted nothing to do with it. He wanted to believe the universe knew him better than this, to know that he wasn’t going to love anyone and if he had to, it wasn’t going to be someone like this.

Unfortunately, the universe knew him better than he’d like to think it did.

The months in Arkham lengthened, and Jervis slowly got over his soulmark. Or, he didn’t get over it per se, but the bitterness faded. He no longer had the same kind of almost infectious joy he’d had the first couple of times Jonathan had met him, but he wasn’t moping either. When Jerome finally explained his grand plan, Jervis had jumped in eagerly, seemingly not caring about what was in it for him.

Sometimes, Jonathan thought Jervis knew. When he would act overly polite, or go out of his way to spend time with Jonathan. It put him on edge. There was the distinct possibility that Jervis was just being polite, of course. He’d discovered that, though Jervis had absolutely no sympathy towards anyone he’d killed, and enjoyed killing just as much as Jerome, he was unfailingly polite to everyone except the GCPD. It didn’t make sense, but it didn’t have to. Very little about Jervis made sense.

Other times, Jonathan could almost forget. In moments he didn’t remember the twin marks on their wrists, he could enjoy Jervis’s company. Because even if he didn’t make sense, he was interesting and reasonably intelligent. He could talk Jonathan’s ear off and while usually, Jonathan would give someone a dose of his fear gas for rambling on at him like that, he was never tempted to gas Jervis. Once, on a dismal Thursday afternoon about five months after they’d met, the thought that he might like to hold his hand flitted across Jonathan’s mind. 

Arkham couldn’t have couches, for obvious reasons like inmates fashioning weapons out of the springs and a deep-seated desire by the staff to make the inmates uncomfortable, but they could have beanbags. The beanbags were one of Jerome’s additions, and one he was particularly proud of. Of course, this meant that he controlled the beanbags - they were reserved for him and anyone he chose, and if anyone took his seat, they’d regret it.

Jonathan and Jervis were Jerome’s favorites, and as such they had guaranteed spots on the beanbags. Jervis, of course, could barely use his. Even with the level of control Jerome exerted over the Arkham staff, they wouldn’t let Jervis out of his room for more than twenty or thirty minutes a day. When he wasn’t mixing some chemical for Jerome in his cell toilet, Jonathan had practically taken up permanent residence on the beanbags, as they were far more comfortable than his bed. He couldn’t let his guard down there, not in the rec room where so many violent crazies routinely gathered.  
Mostly, they knew better than to mess with him, but it was never good to leave an opening for someone stupid enough to try anything.

Much of Jerome’s plan was formulated on those beanbags. At first, Jonathan sat a good five feet away from Jervis and Jerome, intent on preserving his personal space. By the time they were preparing to enact the plan, he’d joined them in their beanbag pile, though he didn’t remember deciding to move. 

Simply put, it was nice. Occasionally, an elbow or a knee would bump into Jonathan as someone made a grandiose hand gesture or shifted to stay on the beanbag. It didn’t mean anything, and he knew that. And that was probably why it felt so incredible. For the first time in at least a decade, someone touched him in a way that wasn’t meant to inflict pain. 

The first time it happened, Jerome had laughed so hard at something stupid that he’d practically fallen over. He leaned on Jonathan for a second or two before letting himself fall back on the beanbag, and even then his knee rested against Jonathan’s leg. And in that moment, he forgot how to breathe.

“You good?” Jerome asked from where he still lay on his back, with one eye squinted closed and the other trained on Jonathan in concern.

All Jonathan could think was that he hadn’t been hugged since before his mother died, and he was keenly feeling that absence, but he nodded. “Yeah.”

After that, Jerome went out of his way to sit just a little bit closer to Jonathan, to sling an arm around his shoulders on occasion. Jervis was a little shier about it, but slowly he too moved closer to Jonathan. By the time they were ready to break out, the three of them practically lay on top of each other on the beanbags, much to the disgust of some of the other inmates. 

And Jonathan slowly got used to it. His brain no longer blanked when Jerome or Jervis accidentally (or purposely) bumped into him, and he could think while in physical contact with another person. He had friends, and he was slowly learning to associate touch with good things instead of bad. Arkham might actually be helping him, he thought wryly.

It wasn’t until after Jerome had staged his breakout, taking Jervis and Jonathan with him, that Jonathan started to think that maybe love didn’t have to be as evil as he’d always thought.  
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he’d always been afraid that Jerome would discard him as soon as he had what he wanted. But he’d given Jerome the laughing gas, and Jerome didn’t get rid of him. Jerome was still his best friend. 

Jerome had never been shy about telling people he loved them. Jonathan knew Jerome loved Jervis, had heard him say it enough times, and he knew he loved his brother, even if he thought that love might be more than a little toxic. Still, it came as a surprise when Jerome tacked on “Love ya” at the end of his sentence one day.

Jonathan didn’t say anything. He knew he looked shocked, even though the mask covered up where his jaw had dropped open.

“You look like a deer in headlights,” Jerome laughed. “Course I love ya. You’re my best friend too, dumbass.”

And if Jerome loved him, Jonathan thought, maybe love wasn’t designed to hurt. Because he liked being friends with Jerome, and no matter how many people Jerome killed, he was sure he’d never hurt him. He thought he maybe even loved Jerome too.

Of course, that realization did not necessarily preclude the understanding that not all soulmates were bad. But it was a nudge in the right direction.

Jonathan watched Jervis more now. He’d known him for almost a year now, and even if he wasn’t ready to tell him they were soulmates - and it was too late now, wasn’t it, even if he did want to he couldn’t exactly say “I’ve known we are soulmates for a year but I didn’t tell you” - he was starting to think the universe had been onto something.

Somehow, without knowing about the soulmarks, Jervis had developed something of a crush on Jonathan. It was obvious to anyone who was looking, and Jonathan certainly was. He knew Jerome had seen it too, even if he hadn’t said anything.

It had started slowly. Jervis was even more polite to Jonathan than he was to anyone else, which was a true accomplishment. He’d started making more excuses to spend time with Jonathan, and their time in the back of Jerome’s hijacked GCPD prisoner transport van had been uncomfortably tense. If that hadn’t been enough of a clue, Jervis practically got heart eyes when Jonathan had started working on the larger batch of laughing gas. 

And the weird thing was, Jonathan didn’t mind. He’d dreaded love since he was seven years old, and though he knew he didn’t love Jervis and Jervis didn’t love him, he wasn’t afraid of trying.

The night before Jerome was due to storm his brother’s workplace, Jonathan knocked on Jervis’s door.

Things were so much easier, now that they weren’t in Arkham. They were wanted by the GCPD, but that was a given. Surprisingly, the ineptitude of the GCPD meant that being the most wanted criminals in the city was an easier life than in Arkham. Penguin had generously provided a house for their home base, though Jonathan knew the generosity was motivated entirely by fear. After living in Arkham so long, this house, old and dark though it was, seemed like heaven. The floorboards creaked, but that was a sign he wasn’t standing on solid concrete. His bed was actually comfortable, unlike Arkham’s death traps they called cots.

Jonathan knocked again, softly. It was late, after all.

“Yes?” Jervis asked when he opened it, face flitting through confusion, concern, and then settling on a look of carefully concealed panic. Jonathan looked down and saw why - instead of his usual formal suit or even carefully styled Arkham uniform, he wore regular pajamas, just loose flannel pants and a T-shirt. His top hat was carefully set on top of the dresser.

“Were you sleeping? I can go.” Jonathan hadn’t even thought that Jervis might be sleeping. It was probably 2AM by this point, but time had always been a little funny for both of them. He knew that if he left, he wouldn’t find this kind of bravery again for a long time.

“Not at all,” Jervis said, discreetly pulling a suit jacket from the back of a chair and trying to put it on as inconspicuously as possible. “What can I do for you?”

“I wanted to talk to you. Can- can I come in?”

“Of course.” 

They sat on the edge of Jervis’s bed, and Jonathan thought this must be the most ridiculous thing he’d ever done. He’d worn the scarecrow face for so long, he barely remembered what his own looked like, and here he was about to show it to a guy he liked (and what a weird thought that was, _liking_ someone), who happened to be absolutely insane and also wearing a patterned suit jacket over a pajama shirt he was fairly sure had a baseball logo on it.

Of course, he was wearing a scarecrow costume, so. 

“What’s wrong?” Jervis asked, and Jonathan realized he hadn’t said anything in well over a minute. This was off to a great start.

He regretted not practicing some sort of a speech, but it was too late now. He was here. “I trust you. And I want you to know who I am. So I want. I’m going to.” Words failed him, so he motioned to the bottom of his mask and began to push it up over his face.

Jervis grabbed Jonathan’s wrist, still safely covered by fabric, just as the mask no longer covered his chin. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I don’t judge you for wearing your mask.”

Jonathan’s eyes closed, though he wasn’t sure if Jervis could see that now that the eye holes weren’t lined up properly anymore. “I know,” he said softly. “I want to.”

“Okay.” Jervis dropped Jonathan’s wrist.

Jonathan kept his eyes closed as he pulled off the mask. He felt a waft of cool air as it came off, and the slight wind from an open window. 

“Jonathan? Jonathan, look at me.”

He opened his eyes slowly. Jervis was still sitting in front of him. He hadn’t moved. He was smiling softly, and for some reason the sight made Jonathan’s heart feel strangely full.

“Thank you for trusting me.”

Jonathan nodded slightly, and smiled hesitantly, only the corner of his mouth moving. “I should - I should go.”

Something behind Jervis’s eyes fell, and that was all the confirmation Jonathan needed. Jervis didn’t want him to leave, and he was being brave tonight. Before he could talk himself out of it, he leaned forward and kissed Jervis on the cheek.

He grabbed his mask and pulled it on as he hurried to the door, thankful it covered how red his face was. “Good night,” he said, and his voice was higher than it had any reason to be.

Behind him, Jervis was still sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes half closed and with a stupid smile on his face. “Good night,” he whispered back.

Jervis was practically glowing when he walked into the kitchen the next morning. He made himself a cup of tea and left, humming softly as he did so. 

Jonathan let himself look at Jervis with a far softer expression than he would normally permit, even though only his eyes were visible. Jervis was happy, he thought. And he was happy too.

“I don’t know what happened between the two of ya last night,” Jerome said, drinking coffee straight out of the coffeepot and giving Jonathan as close to a knowing look as he was capable of, “but I’m calling it. That man is head over heels in love with you. And I think you should tell him.”

Jonathan opened his mouth to say “Nothing happened.” Because in Jerome’s sense of the word, nothing had happened. Jonathan wasn’t that type of person - he just wasn’t interested. But in reality, so much had happened. And he wouldn’t lie to Jerome.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

He didn’t say anything, opting for a glare at Jerome over the toaster. 

“Don’t tell me you don’t love him,” Jerome said, absently flipping a knife between his fingers. He didn’t even do it to be threatening at this point, it was just a habit. “You’re not as obvious as him, but I can tell.”

“I want him to love me because of me, not because of some tattoo,” Jonathan said, and he didn’t know it was true until he spoke the words. “And I still think soulmates are a trap, and I was stupid enough to fall into it.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Jervis said, walking back into the kitchen and popping an English muffin in the toaster. “What did you do?”

Jerome raised his eyebrows higher than should be physically possible and left the room, taking the coffeepot with him, much to Jonathan’s distress.

And it was now or never. He could so easily make up a lie, say he’d bought into a telemarketing scam or gotten the chemicals for his fear gas mixed up. But he didn’t want to lie. And he should tell him, even if he’d rather never, ever do it.

“I hate soulmates. They remove people’s agency and aren’t scientifically proven and they don’t even work all the time.”

“You told me you didn’t have a soulmark,” Jervis said in an accusatory tone. He stepped toward Jonathan and set down his cup of tea.

Jonathan looked at the floor. “I lied,” he said, pulling up his sleeve.

He refused to look up as he felt Jervis gently take hold of his wrist and rub his thumb over the still-scarred skin under his tattoo. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I don’t - I didn’t want a soulmate. Because love is a trap. And I’d… rather not have one.”

Jervis dropped his wrist and stepped back.

“I wasn’t going to tell you,” Jonathan continued, taking a deep breath, “because I didn’t want to hurt you. And I couldn’t be with you. So you didn’t need to know.”

“I thought it was you, at first. And then I hoped it was. But I trusted you when you said no, and now you are telling me it was a lie. That I didn’t need to know who my soulmate was, when you already knew. That you thought it was okay to watch me think that I was hopeless, that even the person the universe had promised would love me didn’t. 

“It wasn’t just me thinking that, though, was it? You chose to not care. And now what? You give me hope and then you tell me you don’t want a soulmate. I was willing to be with you when I didn’t know, when I knew I had a soulmate and thought it couldn’t be you. So why did you tell me now?”

Jervis wasn’t crying, not quite, but his eyes were shining and his voice was thick and he was clearly trying very, very hard not to cry or yell. 

“I’m sorry,” Jonathan said slowly. He hadn’t thought this through at all, and it was far too early for this - barely 8 am - and he hadn’t thought this would go anywhere near this badly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just - I couldn’t have a soulmate last year. And I didn’t think about how that would make you feel. But I’m not sorry I didn’t tell you, because it wouldn’t have been good for either of us if I had. I wouldn’t have been good for us.

“I tried so hard to hate you. If I hated you, it could be a mistake and I wouldn’t have a soulmate after all. But I couldn’t. Instead I went and fell in love with you anyway, and that’s why I had to tell you. Because you’re right, you deserve to know.”

“I’m still mad at you,” Jervis said, wiping his eyes with his sleeve.

“If it helps, I’m mad at me too.”

Jonathan blinked, and before he knew it Jervis was hugging him. Hesitantly, afraid he would scare him off somehow or mess things up further, Jonathan hugged him back. Jervis hooked his chin over Jonathan’s shoulder, and they just stood in the middle of the kitchen, arms around each other.

Just as they stepped away from each other, Jerome walked back in, still holding the coffeepot. He started to say “Congratulations!” before Jonathan and Jervis cut him off with a synchronized glare, and he slowly backed out of the kitchen, arms up in a mock defensive position.

When he was at a safe distance, Jerome wolf-whistled in their direction and took off running, laughing all the way. 

Back in the kitchen, Jervis ignored the whistle to ask “Did you want to try? Us?”

Jonathan nodded. “Yeah. If you do.”

Jervis slid his hand into Jonathan’s. “I’d like to,” he said with a hesitant smile.

**Author's Note:**

> ... and then 4x18 happens and Jerome dies like 2 days later lmaoooo
> 
> This is by far the most I've ever written in one sitting. It'll never happen again. And I got lazy towards the end there, but whatever. But I hope y'all enjoyed!! If you did, leave a comment/kudos or come yell with me on tumblr @alpacasandravens


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